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what is the saying agian.. don't judge a book by it is cover.
That saying essentially means to make a judgement call without actually examining any relevant information. I'm advocating for keeping relevant information available and viewable. So uh, that doesn't really hold up, dude.
I do appreciate the sentiment that a product should stand by itself, but consumers should have the chance to know if they're getting involved with a less-than-scrupulous developer. Again, it's about enabling them to make the most informed purchasing decision possible. You haven't really made any kind of argument as to why this information shouldn't be kept available, either, just that you personally don't think it's relevant.
https://steamdb.info
Over all i kind of do agree with @MalikQayum the game needs to be judge by what it is, not who made it (for good or bad)
And a reason not to show it is the saying that you cant see the Forest with all the trees
Over all for most small developers these is unlikely to have almost any effect, as they very rarely remove games
For big studios how ever like Activsion these becomes a mess, they have lots of copyright games that are removed as of licencing, these mean a huge list of removed games that will show to honstly in my view kind of pointless info
Also remmber Valve dont mark each as a game alonebut a appid, so you can get on a list like that 5 defrent show of the same game for cery of reasons..
And as said that i think you ned to look at the game as what it is not who made it, that makes these kind of pointless...
The steamdb site doesn't provide ready access to a developer's release history, or I'd be advocating for making that site more visible. Thanks, though.
And that saying doesn't work, either. It refers to being too engrossed in details to see the overall picture. Keeping release histories intact would give a clearer image of a devs track history, which IS the overall picture that I'm referring to, and certainly goes beyond a single game.
This isn't a counter-argument. It happens, and the relevant information is lost in the process. That's enough to warrant this, in my view.
You're going to have to back that up with specifics, because I strongly suspect that you're very wrong about this. And again, it's PART OF THEIR TRACK RECORD. That's the entire point of this.
I don't mean to be a jerk if English isn't your first language, but I honestly can't quite understand this bit.
Consumers should always have the option to make themselves aware of the kind of people they're buying a product from, so they can know that they're purchasing from someone reputable. Arguing against this is like saying that brand reputation is meaningless.
If you personally don't care for having this information to hand, then don't look at it. There are people who would be quite happy to make use of it, especially given the notoriety of certain Early Access failures and the like, and arguing against keeping this information available is to argue against allowing these people to make purchasing decisions based on criteria that they determine to be important to them personally.
Kind of pointless. Hust do a google search. Clicking on the puyblisher and developer will show all their current games in the store and that would generally be enough.
Yes, it does show all of them. Except the ones that have been pulled, which is what I am specifically addressing. And no, that might not be enough, since it does not provide a full picture of their track or the full extent of their interactions with their customers. Some people think these things are important. You don't, and that's fine. Let other people have access to that information if they want it. The only people who stand to lose out are developers and publishers who cultivate a bad track record and a poor reputation.
And why would that be important? Publishers lose rights to distribute games all the time and developer studios go under and re-form all the time.The important data would be what are the games the publisher/developer has the gall to charge money for,
Some people also think phrenology is omportant.. Look. What you're asking for is something to enable you to make shallow snap judgements. t
As said. Most, like yourself, have little understanding about the development side of things or even the many intricacises of publisher/developer interactions.
And funnily enough those are the ones that'd be leaste affected. Those who have a bad track recored can simply close and reform. Thusly clearing their track record as developers. It's even easier for publishers who can shuffle papers and create new SBUs to shuffle the bad rep onto.
Secondly It creates an interesting problem fro publishers since you can have a case of the same game being listed under two different publishers. Licenses can expire and be bought and sold. Hell sometimes publication is dvidied along geographic boundaries.
Take Fallout classic. Originally under interplay. The license is now currently held by bethesda.
By your suggestion, the game would show up as being published by both interplay and bethesda.
That creates a scenario where one publisher can get flack for the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ created by another.
"I'm advocating for keeping relevant information available and viewable." that is a subjective opinion, you might find that previous games on steam should be viewable, fine, does that then mean if someone elses wants to know whether a dev is hobby dev / educated programmer / game designer that we should also get that information available on the store page.
"consumers should have the chance to know if they're getting involved with a less-than-scrupulous developer."
whether a developer is cashgraber or whatever else should play no role, if you have an interest in the game then you buy it, you feel iffy about it then you look at the reviews if the reviews are mostly negative then it would be an indication that it is most likely not well recieved, that is all the information you really need.
you do not decline a game because that dev also made another game that was really poorly recieved and apply that games recieval on to that new game.
"You haven't really made any kind of argument as to why this information shouldn't be kept available, either, just that you personally don't think it's relevant."
I briefly also got into this earlier but let me make it clear, your opinion that a developers previous games matters is your opinion, i can respect that but i disagree because a game should stand on it is own merits, valve is providing you with every ability to inform yourself about the current game, in form of reviews and letting you play it for 2 hours max within 2 weeks before requesting a refund.
if you just want more information about what a dev has worked on previously then where does it stop ? untill we get a developers lifestory ? because surely someone out there will like you find that, more is needed to be told about these devs.
a developer sometimes makes games which at a given time are pretty decent but over the years it becomes less decent in terms of quality and whatnot and a dev migth want to put that aside because every dev starts out somewhere but if they are going to be constantly reminded that they made / were a part of a game that was poorly made by today or that times standards then that is not going to be fun.
lastly i want to point out, google can be used aswell.
Now let's go down your reply and see how that weighs up against these ideas.
Distribution rights are irrelevant to what I'm getting at, as are the formation and dissolution of studios. Again. Track record. Reputation. Consumers knowing who they're dealing with and having easy access to information about everything that's been made under that name.
A blatant false equivalency followed by a thinly-veiled insult.
Let me make this abundantly clear - insofar as this matter is concerned, I don't give a damn about the difficulties of game development or industry interactions, because it's not the consumer's problem. If a developer gains a poor reputation, whether through poor customer interaction or poor products, it's entirely on them, and "but it's hard" is not a defense, nor is it any kind of rebuttal for the idea of making information regarding past conduct available to the consumer.
Not to mention you're being presumptuous.
If it's that simple, I have to wonder why it doesn't happen all the damned time. Because it certainly doesn't seem to. I'd like some examples if I'm wrong on this.
Your example doesn't quite hold up since Interplay is listed as the developer on the store page, but you've got a point on that one. Getting around that would ideally mean keeping an accurate record of IPs that change hands. That typically doesn't happen more than once or twice, though. Not sure how much of an extra weight that would put on things.
There's also the nuance that publishers don't get pooped on for development practices themselves unless they made the game in question in-house - they're much more likely to get criticised for business practices, which isn't something that an IP sale would be accompanied by.
Nothing subjective about it. Past release information is absolutely relevant, and it's pretty self-evident why.
A studio's release history and a particular staff member's educational/professional history are two EXTREMELY different subjects. False equivalency.
This is less about recognising the quality of individual games and more about giving the consumer a better chance of spotting patterns of poor business conduct, with a particular nod towards the Greenlight and EA programs, both of which have gained considerable notoriety due to this. In that light, having an idea about the manner of people you're buying a product off is absolutely something that plays a role.
Nowhere did I say that one should take a reaction to one product and apply it directly to another.
It's absolutely fine that you have your own methods of determining if you want a product or not. Other people have theirs, and it doesn't make much sense to me to deny them the information that they find relevant to their interests.
And again, this isn't about focusing on a specific game and applying a developer's release history to it, because that would be ridiculous.
You touched on this earlier, and I'll the same thing again - personal information about a specific member of a studio is COMPLETELY different from having an overview of that studio's release history.
And if they got involved in a project that turned out poorly, well....that's too bad, really. Gotta own your mistakes and be an adult about it. Sucks, but that's part of how you learn and grow.
Convenience is the thing here. It's convenient to have that info easily available within the steam client.
That's actually a more general point I hadn't even considered. Overall data retention. Steam is so frigging huge, it could probably act as a fairly comprehensive look at the history of the industry's PC output years down the line. Origin games notwithstanding. That's an interesting thought.
*cough*Starforge*cough* :p
Except that they would know nothing. Again. A developer can dissolve and rebrand themselves under e new track record. Clearing their slate each time. A publisher can get saddled with baggage just because they acquired the rights to one particular game in a block of IP in a recently purchased portfolip.
You're trying to correlate two potentially unrelated pieces of information to paint a picture. Which like phrenology used trhe shape of of a person's head to determine their personality and intelligence. Also that was not a thinly veiled insult but simply an observation of cause and effect.
Especially since you literally have no interest in understanding the how and why. You just want easy premises to make snap judgements as you yourself give evidence for here:
I don't think so. And two can play that game.
What is the saying again? Honesty is the best policy.
1. I'm not completely disinterested in the workings of the industry - I'm saying they're irrelevant as to what I'm aiming for with this suggestion. The complexities of what the entities involved are getting up to don't matter when all I'm asking for is a retention of release histories of games that have subsequently been removed from the store.
2. Again, nowhere, NOWHERE have I said that I wanted to utilise this to make petty snap judgements on individual software, and I've already pointed that out. I want information made available to consumers that allows them to obtain a clearer picture of who they're buying from, not just what they're buying. Like it or not, that matters to some people. And no, it's not "like phrenology" since it can actually have a bearing on the industry.
3. Ion Storm Austin and Ion Storm Dallas were pretty well-defined as two seperate studios.
And a quick wiki tells me that Brian Fargo was the founder of Interplay, who are listed as Fallout's developer.
You want to know what I'm looking for? Here's an example:
http://i.imgur.com/IbdUrcY.png
This is a screenshot of steam releases by Codehatch. Starforge is missing, because they pulled it from the store. The forums are still there. I want that entry put back, even if the game can't be bought anymore, because at least then consumers have a chance to go look at the feedback, have a look at what went right, what went wrong, and decide if they can trust the developer they're interested in buying from to treat their customers properly. It's not about snap judgements, it's about creating a setting where prospective customers can develop a more thorough overview of the content creator they're interested in, and how they interact with their playerbase, because that DOES matter to a lot of people.
There's nothing big or complicated about the idea itself, though I can concede that IPs changing hands and the like could make it a bit messy in certain cases, but it's clear we have very different priorities. And that's absolutely fine.